


Ficlets and prompt responses

by dancinguniverse



Category: Life (TV), Standoff
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 10:27:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16852327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: All previously posted to Tumblr and now being imported to Ao3.





	1. "Tell me a secret."

Emily had said, “Tell me a secret.” And Matt had showed her what he wasn’t proud of.

Emily had said, “I love you,” like she was bursting to tell it, and that wasn’t a secret Matt wanted to hear. That secret begged another one in turn, rooted it out of him when Matt wanted it locked up tight. And Matt, for a guy who spent his life talking to people and uncovering their secrets, felt like each of his took a part of him with them when they escaped, like his lungs sat there gasping on the pavement.

Charlie takes only what is offered. Charlie doesn’t ask Matt for his secrets. This is good, this is fine, this is absolutely necessary, because it means Matt never has to tell him,  _I thought you were guilty, too._

But it gnaws at him after a while, because for Charlie, they’re all secrets. Charlie keeps information like  _I love you_  buried in the same locked chamber where he keeps all his memories about the Seyboldts, a whole life he has boxed away and rarely accesses.

And he is equally shuttered about the rage that burns like a furnace inside him, which Matt sees leaking out in such rare circumstances that he’d be inclined to discount it except that it explains so much about Charlie.

Charlie works on his anger like a farmer clearing back weeds. The job never ends, Matt eventually understands. The goal is only to keep them at bay long enough for something else to take root and have a fighting chance.

Matt could tell Charlie that they’d had a pool at the office on whether Charlie would receive the death penalty. Matt could tell Charlie that he’d thought Charlie emblematic of the rotten image the LAPD bore, that he’d cited Charlie’s name in arguments to make the point that police didn’t always protect their own. He could tell Charlie he felt sick when he remembered it all.

But Charlie doesn’t need another thorn creeping into the careful plot he’s tending, where Reese and Ted and Rachel and his orange grove reside. Matt swallows down his confessions and digs up a different one, to feed the better crop.

It takes three aborted attempts where the thing he “has to tell” Charlie is a) that they are nearly out of toilet paper, b) that Charlie’s favorite coffee shop is relocating and c) that he borrowed Charlie’s deodorant. Charlie takes all of these in stride.

Finally, on a Wednesday when Matt is creeping through traffic and Charlie calls on his lunch break just to say hello, Matt says, “I’m thinking about not renewing my lease.”

Charlie says, “I have plenty of space.”

And Matt keeps the rest of his secrets outside Charlie’s tenuous fence. He can give this one thing room to grow. 


	2. “I tried to surprise you, but I spilled your coffee on the way over…”

Matt cracks open a water bottle and squints across the sea of cars and heat hazy asphalt. They’re into hour four and the sun is only now high enough to glare, but he was dragged out of bed at 4 a.m. to deal with this police chase gone wrong, and the day feels much later than it is. The nice thing about pauses for food deliveries, though, is that it gives him a chance to hydrate, and he’s chugging a liter bottle when Cheryl touches his shoulder, holding up a walkie-talkie. She’s doing a bad job of keeping a straight face.

“He says he’s your coconut cranberry stud muffin.”

Matt chokes on his water, coughing hard.

“You have a one-night stand follow you home, Flannery?” She’s laughing over her words now, holding a hand to her mouth for propriety’s sake, but not like she’s trying very hard.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, and stalks off toward the police line.

Frank is waiting, a shit-eating grin on his face, perfectly blocking Matt’s path. “Flannery.”

“You need something?” Matt asks. He doesn’t bother ducking around him. If Frank wants you to stop, you’re not going anywhere.

Frank seems to take an eternity to heave his huge shoulders in a shrug and hoist his rifle a little higher. Matt shifts his weight impatiently. “Didn’t know you were into redheads, is all,” is his final judgment.

Matt just glares at him and finally Frank steps aside, grinning even wider, to reveal Charlie, sunglasses shading his eyes but not his bright smile, looking unbearably hot and a good ten years younger than he is in a plain white tee shirt and jeans. There’s a cantaloupe cradled gently in his arms. Matt may never hear the end of this, but he allows himself a wild sort of hope that at least the trifecta of Emily — coming out, breakup 1, and breakup 2 — might start to fade finally in the face of Charlie Crews at his workplace.

“What are you doing?” Matt hisses, grabbing his arm and yanking him past Frank. He was blindly planning for a quiet corner where he could figure out why the hell Charlie — from not just one, but maybe quite a few nights lately  — was showing up at his work, but there’s a line of unashamedly interested coworkers standing behind him, barely pretending to be involved in their own conversations.

“Your friends stare a lot,” Charlie points out. He shifts the cantaloupe in his grip and hands Matt an empty paper cup. “I tried to surprise you, but I spilled your coffee on the way over… It got on my shirt.”

“That doesn’t even come close to explaining,” Matt promises him, though he hesitates for just a moment, thrown by the logo of his favorite coffee shop up in Pasadena, the one he never seems to have time for. He focuses. “You just outed me at work!”

Charlie blinks at him. “You said you told people about us.”

Matt blinks back. He had. He had totally told Charlie that he had told people about them. And he had wanted to, laying happy and a little bit tipsy but mostly punch drunk in Charlie’s bed laughing about something a month or so back. (Ok, so maybe he’s been seeing a lot of Charlie for a while now.) He’d told him he didn’t care, and he hadn’t at the time.

But then he’d clammed up. Frank didn’t exude the kind of attitude that encouraged confidences, and Lia told everyone fucking everything. Which was maybe the point, but stalled his tactics. Cheryl knew about Matt and guys, of course, because she’d been the one to pry him off a bar stool in 1992 when Chuck Horst had broken his heart. But then there was the part where this particular guy was  _Charlie Crews_ , yes,  _that_  Charlie Crews, and he had panicked.

In the end, he’d told no one, and then he’d told Charlie he’d told everyone, because he should have, really. He wanted to. He had meant to.

Matt switches tracks. “Why do you have a cantaloupe?”

Charlie hefts it toward him, an offering. “Well I spilled your coffee. It’s perfectly ripe. They say you can hear it. When a melon is perfectly ripe. I’ve been practicing. I think I’ve got it down.”

“I love cantaloupe,” Duff breaks in from over Matt’s shoulder, reaching for it. “We got a knife around here somewhere, right, boys?” He sticks out his hand. “I’m Duff.” 

Charlie smiles at Duff, delighted. “Charlie Crews,” he offers, holding out his hand. 

Matt sighs grimly. “Charlie, why don’t you meet the gang?” he caves. 


End file.
